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August 11, 2018

One of the reasons congress members are so rich after retiring from government salary is because buying and selling stock with inside information of what might do to help or hurt the company is legal.

So it's always an oddity when one of them draws law enforcement scrutiny over stock trades.

Here are a couple of articles from the local morning paper -- Midland Reporter-Telegram.

The one about Representative Christopher Collins is labeled as an Associated Press article. And it tells the story of how he used inside information to unload shares of Innate Immunotherapeutics Limited in time to avoid a big loss. Allegedly, he shared his insider information with one or more relatives who sold too.

The other article is about Representative Mike Conaway and appears to be a press release. It tells us that while Mr. Conaway sold his stock in that same company. But no charges were brought against him because the way he did it was perfectly legal. Presumably he didn't tell his relatives, so he got a pass.

That whole business of letting representatives use inside information in stock trades stinks to high heaven. But since they make the rules under which they operate, it's unlikely we'll see any reforms.

August 09, 2018

Some interesting new conclusions about poverty in the U.S. suggest it isn't as bad as some let on. With a booming economy and higher numbers rejoining the work force, it seems logical that generalizations about poverty will lag reality.

First, official income data ignore many of the government distribution schemes.

Second, official poverty measure relies on surveys. And we all know that many if not most people decline to participate in surveys.

Third, research has historically depended on the reported Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers which ignores new products that have become popular.

Instead, these researchers put more emphasis on consumption and the goods and services people can afford to purchase. And they note that the poor today are living as well as the middle class did a generation ago.

Their conclusion:

Fighting poverty requires knowing its extent and among whom it is most severe. Modern antipoverty efforts should promote self-sufficiency. This can be accomplished through work requirements, as well as by helping low-skilled individuals find jobs, offering public employment in targeted cases and helping low-income parents secure child care.

At the same time, the safety net should ensure that those who are unable to work have access to sufficient resources to meet their basic needs. Encouraging self-sufficiency used to be a bipartisan issue; it can be again.

Anecdotally, another admittedly unofficial measure might be the obesity we see among fellow shoppers. If nothing else, they are eating well.

An extensive report from the Environmental Protection Agency found that including ethanol into the U.S. gas supply is wreaking havoc on the atmosphere and soil.

In a study titled “Biofuels and the Environment: The Second Triennial Report to Congress,” the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that ethanol derived from corn and soybeans is causing serious harm to the environment. Water, soil and air quality were all found to be adversely affected by biofuel mandates. ... Essentially, the study found that biofuel mandates are boosting production of corn and soybeans.

Large-scale production of these crops is causing environmental degradation.

The EPA also found that — at least in some instances — using ethanol in lieu of gasoline resulted in worse air emissions.

So we've got laws on the books that do more harm that good. It's time for Trump to do a 180 on that promise and for Congress to change the law.

In an interview, [FEMA Administrator William “Brock”] Long described a “toxic” environment in the human resources department under [Corey] Coleman at FEMA headquarters. Starting in 2015, investigators said, Coleman hired many men who were friends and college fraternity brothers and women he met at bars and on online dating sites. He then promoted some of them to roles throughout the agency without going through proper federal hiring channels.

Coleman then transferred some of the women in and out of departments, some to regional offices, so his friends could try to have sexual relationships with them, according to employees’ statements during interviews with investigators.

Astonishing. Mr. Coleman seemed quite comfortable with the system he set up. And that is reason to believe it wasn't an isolated situation. One has to wonder how widespread this sort of corruption is within government agencies.

July 29, 2018

Mr. Nunes’s efforts have provoked extraordinary partisan and institutional fury in Washington—across the aisle, in the FBI and other law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, in the media. “On any given day there are dozens of attacks, each one wilder in its claims,” he says. Why does he keep at it? “First of all, because it’s my job. This is a basic congressional investigation, and we follow the facts,” he says.The “bigger picture,” he adds, is that in “a lot of the bad and problematic countries” that Intelligence Committee members investigate, “this is what they do there. There is a political party that controls the intelligence agencies, controls the media, all to ensure that party stays in power. If we get to that here, we no longer have a functioning republic. We can’t let that happen.”

June 07, 2018

It was strange hearing those words from a Democrat. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was on CNBC the other day answering questions, and he actually sounded quite good. He said what the nation needed was 4% economic growth and entitlement reform to counter the huge government debt.

The last president to propose major entitlement reform was George W. Bush, and Democrats pounded it into the ground. Could Schultz bring them around? We've seen Democrats spin on a dime when their leaders change positions. So it's entirely possible.

The two big walls that would he needs to scale are these. One is the trend toward socialism which is seemingly gaining ground. The other is the powerful Democrat party machine. Regarding that one, Donald Trump was able to overpower the Republican party machine, so maybe Schultz could do the same on his side of the political spectrum.

Anyway, hearing a Democrat talk like that was refreshing. And wouldn't it be amusing to see a Democrat run to the right of Trump?

Meanwhile, there have been some serious suggestions by Republicans on Social Security reform. Chief among them are raising the retirement age, lowering payments to high-income Americans, and changing the way cost of living increases are calculated. Let's hope Congress doesn't let this potential crisis fall into their regular pattern of waiting until the last minute before acting.

May 16, 2018

There's something amusing about the prospect of our elected representatives camping out in their Congressional offices. But given the high real estate values in the capitol area, maybe they've hit on the best way to live away from home on the cheap.

When Jason Chaffetz left office he suggested that members of Congress should get a $2,500 housing allowance. My thought at the time was, "why not put them in a dorm?"

A Democratic congressman wants to create affordable housing in Washington, DC — for members of the House.

As the nation’s capital struggles with a homeless crisis, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson plans to introduce legislation as soon as this week calling for a study into converting a vacant residence hall blocks from the US Capitol into cheap housing for the well-paid politicians.

“I think that building should be available to members of Congress who have found housing costs to be prohibitive,” Thompson told The Post — referring to House members who rake in at least $174,000 a year.

“It can be the affordable-housing-availability option,” he said. /snip/

But the proposal isn’t sitting well with some colleagues, who said it raises the specter of a congressional version of “Animal House.”

"Animal House." Well, why not? At least the rest of us might get some entertainment value out of it.

May 11, 2018

We laughed at this particular special interest that sprang up in New York a few years ago. It was the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, and even SNL didn't shy away from mocking this offshoot from the Democrat party.

A 1995 California law prevents cities from making regulations that would establish rent control on single family dwellings and condominiums, and new apartment units. The law also prevents property owners from raising the rent once the current renter vacates the premises or gets evicted for cause. Source.

That law protecting property owners is on the ropes. The November ballot will contain a measure that will end those restrictions. It's hard to imagine Californians voting to keep in place anything that helps a landlord.

The app, called Notifica, allows undocumented immigrants to activate a plan if they come in contact with immigration law enforcement authorities or find themselves at risk of being detained.

The users can previously prepare a set of automatic messages to alert - with one click - family members, lawyers, and others if they or someone they care about have an encounter with immigration enforcement authorities. The tool was developed last year and distributed on a small scale, and is now available for the public on Google and at Apple apps stores.

The group behind the app is called United We Dream, which describes itself as the country’s largest immigrant youth-led community. The nonprofit has more than 400,000 members nationwide and claims to “embrace the common struggle of all people of color and stand up against racism, colonialism, colorism, and xenophobia.” Among its key projects is winning protections and rights for illegal immigrants, defending against deportation, obtaining education for illegal immigrants and acquiring “justice and liberation” for undocumented LGBT “immigrants and allies.” Illegal aliens encounter lots of discrimination, which creates a lot of fear, according to United We Dream. “We empower people to develop their leadership, their organizing skills, and to develop our own campaigns to fight for justice and dignity for immigrants and all people,” United We Dream states on its website, adding that this is achieved through immigrant youth-led campaigns at the local, state, and federal level.

United We Dream started as a project of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), according to records obtained by Judicial Watch. Between 2008 and 2010, NILC received $206,453 in U.S. government grants, the records show. The project funded was for “immigration-related employment discrimination public education.” Headquartered in Los Angeles, NILC was established in 1979 and is dedicated to “defending and advancing the rights of immigrants with low income.” The organization, which also has offices in Washington D.C. and Berkeley, California claims to have played a leadership role in spearheading Barack Obama’s amnesty program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which has shielded hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens from deportation. “Ultimately, NILC’s goals are centered on promoting the full integration of all immigrants into U.S. society,” according to its website.

Both the NILC and its offshoot, United We Dream, get big bucks from Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF). In fact, both nonprofits list OSF as a key financial backer. In the United States Soros groups have pushed a radical agenda that includes promoting an open border with Mexico and fighting immigration enforcement efforts, fomenting racial disharmony by funding anti-capitalist black separationist organizations, financing the Black Lives Matter movement and other groups involved in the Ferguson Missouri riots, weakening the integrity of the nation’s electoral systems, opposing U.S. counterterrorism efforts and eroding 2nd Amendment protections. OSF has also funded a liberal think-tank headed by former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and the scandal-ridden activist group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), so corrupt that Congress banned it from receiving federal funding.

The U.S. is such a free country that those who want to create chaos and disharmony are free to do so without a worry.

April 27, 2018

There's something unseemly about teachers going on strike. There was a time when teaching was a calling, and those who went into the profession were dedicated to the idea that the young minds under their tutelage would grow, and those youngsters would become productive citizens. There are probably still some teachers like that, but reading the headlines one is led to believe they are government workers out to get what they can from taxpayers. And with test scores of American students lagging so far behind students of other countries, it seems reasonable to question whether more money will change that dismal situation.

Be that as it may, there's a poll out which purports to tell us what Americans think of the whole thing. See the apnorc poll report at American Attitudes Toward Teacher Pay and Protests. The most interesting graphic is the one below telling us what the poll responders think should determine teacher salaries:

It's noteworthy that the two categories with the lowest importance are statewide test scores and input from parents. So if this can be believed, a full 2/3rds think the test scores are moderately to very important, but they don't think those scores are the most important determining factor. There's a priority disconnect there.

April 25, 2018

Readers of this blog might remember Jim Gerety as the generous Domino's franchise owner who feeds the volunteers for free at the AirSho at the Midland International Air and Space Port. (That "space port" part has become a local joke, but that's the name, nonetheless.)

As the owner of 18 Domino’s stores in Texas, I do not cut corners, whether on pizzas or complying with the law. Unfortunately, on May 7 the law will become especially burdensome and unhelpful to my customers. That day, President Trump’s FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb will implement a nationwide, Obama-era menu-labeling rule requiring restaurants with 20 or more locations to post in-store menu boards listing the calories of every item sold.

First, the rule fails to account for how my customers actually order pizza in the real world out here in West Texas. Unlike other food establishments that have static menu options, pizza is highly variable: Domino’s offers consumers 34 million different combinations of pizza.

In addition, Domino’s customers do 90 percent of their ordering remotely — either online (Web and app) or by phone. I estimate that I will have to spend approximately $5,000 annually per store to put up compliant menu boards. I’m talking possibly $90,000 to invest in signage that less than 10 percent of my customers actually will see, and less than that actually will use.

Second, the costs of the rule to my employees and me could be excessive, with the greatest beneficiaries of these costs being trial lawyers. This is because Gottlieb’s rule exposes my employees and me to civil and criminal penalties of up to one year in prison and/or a $100,000 fine for inadvertent violations.

That means if one of us accidentally tops a pizza with too much pepperoni or cheese, or is a little heavy-handed with the tomato sauce on a given day, we could be headed to prison.

I know many supporters of the rule would argue that’s an outrageous claim, but FDA has offered no information or clarity except: “Trust us.”

Domino’s online Cal-O-Meter seems like a useful feature and a good replacement for the wall boards. But the rule requiring the menu boards is still in place. So, "Now my employees and I need Trump to weigh in."

April 23, 2018

Thank goodness our founding fathers recognized the need to protect citizens against a government which might be tempted to jail people for what they said.

But freedom of speech is a unique right. Few if any other countries recognize such a right for their citizens. For example, in Britain a fellow has been convicted for a youtube video. That's according to Britain’s Joke War: The Pug and Count Dankula. To wit:

Count Dankula, a YouTube prankster, posted a video in which his girlfriend’s pug gives a Nazi salute, watches Hitler footage, and responds enthusiastically to the remark, “Gas the Jews.” Mr. Dankula appears to be headed for prison, having been convicted of a hate crime by a Glasgow judge. Dankula — real name Mark Meechan of Scotland — is annoying, and in Britain that’s against the law. Section 127 of the Communications Act of 2003 declares it illegal intentionally to “cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another” with online posts. Meechan’s sentencing is set for April 28.

This might be a good time to remember that guy who made a video and became the target of the U.S. government after he became the scapegoat for the Benghazi fiasco. At least in that case the government made the plausible claim that he wasn't prosecuted for the video but for some ancillary charge.

In any case, the left would love to outlaw speech with which they disagree, and it's incumbent on the rest of us to try to protect the bill of rights and all the rights listed therein.

April 17, 2018

Not really a stay of execution, but it is an extra day to get the 1040 prepared. And there I was busting my rear over the weekend to get mine ready.

Turns out not only did the 15th fall on Sunday, April 16th is Emancipation Day in Washington D.C., a holiday. So the true deadline is 4/17/18. If it's postmarked on or before 4/17/18 then it's on time.

On the down side, there will be no swamp draining on the 16th, either.

April 13, 2018

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti should feel some responsibility for the homeless in Los Angeles. It's not because he's so compassionate, it's because housing is so heavily regulated few can build anything, so he's part of the problem.

Under the program the county would lend $75,000 to homeowners to build a backyard house or $50,000 for a garage-type renovation for up to six units. Loan principal would be reduced for each year a formerly homeless person occupies the unit.

After 10 years, the loan would be forgiven and homeowners would be free to do as they want with the building.

One should wonder whether the formerly homeless residents of these dwellings would care enough about them to perform regular upkeep and what recourse, if any, the homeowner would have if they didn't.

Meanwhile, this video uploaded on Christmas day 2016 made the rounds a while back. It's rather astonishing to see how many people live on the streets in downtown Los Angeles. Aside from refugee camps, there's really no worthwhile solution.

March 29, 2018

Lefties are rapidly coming to believe it's time to repeal the 2nd Amendment and begin the great disarmament of American citizens.

To try to convince those who are slow to believe in the movement, advocates for gun control point to Australia as the model. But the gun confiscation program in Australia didn't really accomplish the intended result. Not only did some gun owners decline to turn in their firearms, guns are available for purchase on the black market.

The "black market" is short hand for the means through which buyers and sellers connect, and one in particular is the dark web. Tor is probably the most well known channel in the dark web. We've talked about Tor being funded by the U.S. government previously. But just because some government agency might have the means to monitor Tor, that agency might not necessarily want to intervene and miss out on future intelligence.

General objectives 1. To understand the modus operandi of buying and selling firearms and related products on the dark web. 2. To consider the viability of dark web markets for firearms selling, and more specifically, the extent to which these sellers may engage in scamming by taking payment for products they do not deliver, or may not possess.Market analysis 3. To estimate the size and scope of the trade in firearms and related products on cryptomarkets, including: a. Number of dark web markets listing firearms and related products and services for sale and number of vendors. b. Range and type of firearms and related products advertised and sold on cryptomarkets. 4. To estimate the value of the trade in firearms and related products on cryptomarkets. 5. To identify shipping routes and most common shipping techniques. Analysis of implications 6. To identify the potential impact of darkweb enabled arms trafficking on the overall arms black market, with particular emphasis on market dynamics and market actors. 7. To identify the potential implications of dark web enabled arms trafficking for law enforcement agencies and policy makers, at both the national and international level, including implications for existing international legal instruments designed to tackle the issue of illegal arms trade and transnational organised crime.

Read the whole thing if you want the details. But the point is that guns are available for purchase in any gun controlled country where the subjects have access to the dark web.

I, as a conservative, love to see entrepreneurs succeed. And I would love to see Tesla succeed AND wean itself off subsidies. I would also like to see more established companies, like Toyota, make an electric vehicle with the high quality Toyota buyers expect from that company.

Not long ago I watched a TV show with a title something like, "How They are Made," which featured in that episode about how the Tesla automobile was made. It was a very slow building process with a very high "hand made" aspect to it. Sometime later when Elon Musk announced a very ambitious production rate for the cars, I didn't go nuts, but I did question whether he could pull it off with so much hands-on work involved. Turns out he couldn't.

In any event, good luck Musk. But please quit clamoring for tax dollars.

March 12, 2018

A recent address by Yasha Levine's was broadcast on C-Span 2 (Link) in which he talked about his book, "Surveillance Valley." And in it he made a revelation which may be widely known but was news to me. The famous TOR, which is touted as a network by which one can avoid surveillance, is actually funded by U.S. government agencies. Here's an excerpt from Mr. Levine's website, Fact-checking the Tor Project's government ties, to wit:

The Tor Project, a private non-profit that underpins the dark web and enjoys cult status among privacy activists, is almost 100% funded by the US government. In the process of writing my book Surveillance Valley, I was able to obtain via FOIA roughly 2,500 pages of correspondence — including strategy sessions and contracts and budgets and status updates — between the Tor Project and its main funder, a CIA spinoff now known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an agency that oversees America's foreign broadcasting operations like Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe.

I obtained the documents in 2015. By then I had already spent a couple of years doing extensive reporting on Tor's deeply conflicted ties to the regime change wing of the U.S. government. By following the money, I discovered that Tor was not grassroots. I was able to show that despite its radical anti-government cred, Tor was almost 100% funded by three U.S. national security agencies: the Navy, the State Department and the BBG. Tor was military contractor with its own government contractor number — a privatized extension of the very same government that it claimed to be fighting.

That probably caught a lot of TOR proponents off guard. More:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation held up Tor as the digital equivalent of the First Amendment. The ACLU backed it. Fight for the Future, the hip Silicon Valley activist group, declared Tor to be “NSA-proof.” Edward Snowden held it up as an example of the kind of grassroots privacy technology that could defeat government surveillance online, and told his followers to use it. Prominent award-winning journalists from Wired, Vice, The Intercept, The Guardian and Rolling Stone — including Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and Andy Greenberg — all helped pump up Tor's mythical anti-state rebel status.

Even Daniel Ellsberg, the legendary whistleblower, was convinced that Tor was vital to the future of democracy. Anyone who questioned this narrative and pointed to Tor's lavish government support was attacked, ridiculed, smeared and hounded into silence. I know because that's what Tor supporters tried to do to me.

But the facts wouldn't go away.

The initial evidence that I had gathered in my reporting left little room for doubt about Tor's true nature as foreign policy weapon of the U.S. government. But the box of FOIA documents I received from the BBG took that evidence to a whole new level.

Looks like anyone thinking TOR would help avoid government surveillance is out of luck.

March 01, 2018

There's been talk for quite some time of an amendment to the constitution that would require some fiscal responsibility. For example, Heartland.org has proposed a balanced budget amendment.

Whether we could ever get to the point of a possible amendment is another issue. But a pretty good guideline would be the Debt Break that the Swiss adopted. It seems to be working. Here's a quick and easy explanation of that from Michael Tanner in Economic Lessons from Europe:

For example, we could well benefit from adopting a Swiss-style “debt break.” By law, the Swiss government cannot run a budget deficit over an economic cycle. This is not, strictly speaking, a requirement for an annual balanced budget, but rather it limits the growth in government spending to no more than the average of revenue increases over a multiyear period, after adjusting for the cyclical position of the economy (as calculated by Switzerland’s Federal Department of Finance). This allows the government to smooth budgets during economic slowdowns, when revenues decline and expenditures rise, but prevents ongoing deficit spending. Nor can the Swiss easily raise federal taxes to finance more spending. Maximum tax rates at the national level — an 11.5 percent income tax, an 8 percent value-added tax, and an 8.5 percent corporate tax — are set by the constitution. They can be raised only through a referendum, in which the proposed increase would have to win both a majority of the national vote and a majority of the vote in more than half the Swiss cantons. The equivalent in the United States would be that every tax hike had to be approved by a majority of all American voters and a majority of voters in at least 26 states.

Instead of trying to recreate European welfare and immigration programs here, maybe we should look to the Swiss model for debt reform.

Here in Midland, Texas, the city council hikes taxes every year. It seems inevitable. And t citizens' complaints at the council meetings are usually accepted politely. But the citizens are usually wasting their time.

December 15, 2017

Just what exactly was that "insurance policy" agent Peter Strzok was referring to in his text to Lisa Page? Quoted from The FBI’s Trump ‘Insurance’:

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office—that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” Mr. Strzok wrote Ms. Page in an Aug. 15, 2016 text. He added: “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

If I had to guess, I would say they are cashing in the insurance policy with the investigation that is ongoing against President Trump.

Strzok was schtupping Page. And Greg Gutfeld may have be onto something when he said something to the effect that the texts sounded like macho bravado from a guy who wanted to demonstrate to his current squeeze that he was loaded with testosterone.

Nevertheless, the texts from someone so close to the investigations of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were disturbing. Reminded me of a conversation I had with a federal bureaucrat around the time George W. Bush was elected. The bureaucrat bragged that he had ways to make an agency director look bad if he wanted to. The partisanship was disturbing then, and it is now. We can only hope that eventually the swamp will be drained of those people who can't control themselves, forget politics, and do the job they were hired to do.

November 29, 2017

Net Neutrality was an example of government picking winners and losers among businesses. Stopping it will allow businesses in the industry large and small to innovate and provide customers with the products they want. Net neutrality would have protected the big guys from competition.

There, Mr. Khachatrian explains the difference between IXPs and Tiers 1, 2, and 3 ISPs. Further, he goes on to explain, companies like Google, Netflix, and Facebook connect directly with the IXPs and then to the ISPs as peers. That means that Google is not a customer of an ISP. Google simply connects to these internet exchange points where it peers with service providers. Here are Mr. Khachatrian's words:

This way, Google has far more control over how its content is delivered to users. If Google wants to treat YouTube video packets differently than the packets transferred for uploading Google Docs files, it can.

Net Neutrality laws will not affect Google because Google does not pay transit providers to deliver content to users. It peers with them.

Google likes Net Neutrality because it would stifle competition. And we should celebrate its end.

But here's a mystery. Why would anyone demonstrate against FCC Chairman Ajit Pai over this? Do they really know what they are protesting or are they simply following marching orders?

November 26, 2017

The new book out by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, Rogue Spooks, provides a pretty good summary of the events that concluded in the CIA and FBI working to hurt the Trump presidency. Anyone who follows the news probably already knew most of it. But the authors connect the dots with theories of how it came to be.

One chapter of interest to me was the one titled, "How the intelligence community went from red to blue." The intro to that chapter follows:

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HOW THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY WENT FROM RED TO BLUE The CIA and the FBI have always been bastions of the right. It was the FBI that was filled with anti-communist zealots who hunted down those they considered to be "disloyal." And the CIA patrolled America's borders, intervening to stop any other country from falling under Moscow or Beijing spell.

So they should have been in the cheering section saluting a Trump victory with all they had.

But, instead, they recoiled so violently against Trump that they became the key participants in the virtual coup mounted by the rogue spooks to stop him from governing.

The transformation of the intelligence community from red to blue may stand as one of the most enduring achievements of the Obama presidency-or at least one of the hardest to erase.

When Obama and his Liberal allies saw Trump about to enter the White House, they decided to deploy their weapon of choice against him: leaks from the intelligence community. Having taken care to scrub the intelligence agencies to expunge any taint of conservative thinking, these agencies were perfectly positioned to do Obama's will.

And, in the media, he had a compliant, liberal/radical institution only too happy to print the leaks his people would be handing out.

The intelligence community has long realized that it has two ways to influence public policy in Washington. It can go legitimately up the chain of command to the president, arguing the merits of its case. or it can go outside the process entirely-go rogue-and leak information- or disinformation-to a media wiling and eager to do its bidding.

As the abomination of a Trump presidency neared the oval office, they decided to kill Trump by leaking.

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The authors pin the problem on Obama with John Brennan doing the leg work to fill slots with people dedicated to the progressive agenda. Another interesting chapter was the one on Michael Flynn. The deep state spooks found out he lied about some of his contacts, and they played it into an op that brought Flynn fame, shame and trouble with special counsel Robert Mueller.

Anyway, the book is an interesting collection of factoids and possible reasons behind the acts. And although Trump opponents might brand them as conspiracy theories, those theories have a ring of truth to them.

Meanwhile, to watch a C-Span video of Morris talking about the book, click here.

November 15, 2017

Conservatives have known for a long time that at least two of the big three -- Google and Facebook -- have slanted their search results in favor of Democrats. The third company listed in the articles is Amazon, and while that one is a biggie, it isn't clear that it was as politically influential as the other two.

Franken has not shied away from voicing concerns about tech’s encroachments on privacy and competition in the past, but Wednesday’s criticism was unusually sweeping, tying together a revised narrative about Silicon Valley that only emerged in glimpses during the Russia hearings. Franken argued that the same control over consumers that facilitated the spread of Russian propaganda on social media also helps Facebook and Google siphon advertising revenue from other publishers and helps Amazon dictate terms to content creators and smaller sellers. Tech giants are incentivized to disregard consumer privacy, Franken noted. “Accumulating massive troves of information isn’t just a side project for them. It’s their whole business model,” he said. “We are not their customers, we are their product.”

We would have to speculate why Franken would be concerned about Amazon influencing content creators, and it's not entirely clear if any remedy he proposed would change Google's or Facebook's efforts to influence voters. But if Democrats are now critics of the very companies that helped them so much that's a big deal.

November 10, 2017

A majority of voters in Midland, Texas, voted in favor of a $100 million bond issue for road and water line repairs on 11/7/17. While a sales tax might have been a better approach for raising the money, proponents of the bond convinced voters to pile a huge load of debt onto the backs of property owners.

The photo on the right of the ecstatic council member was on the front page of the print edition of the Midland Reporter-Telegram. I titled it Bond Glee.

Meanwhile, In case anyone is interested in the local government debt, here's a table based on the reports at Bond Review Board Database Search Texas Local Governments FY 2016:

Entity

Principal

Interest

Total

City

$119,420,000

$52,553,031

$171,973,031

College

$36,965,000

$6,715,591

$43,680,591

County

$17,665,000

$4,132,534

$21,797,534

Hospital

$104,115,000

$63,086,894

$167,201,894

MISD

$224,020,000

$136,130,051

$360,150,051

Water District

$226,331,160

$246,486,027

$472,817,187

Totals

$728,516,160

$509,104,128

$1,237,620,288

A few years ago Jason Moore told the Midland city council that the bond debt for the local taxing entities was approaching a billion dollars. The council members scoffed at that. But here we are with a debt as of last year at $1.2 billion. So add another $100 million -- who cares?

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10:58 AM 11/9/2017</p

P.S. I've been wrestling with whether to continue subscribing to the pricey print edition of the Midland Reporter Telegram. Then something like that photo comes along and it makes the whole thing worthwhile.

October 29, 2017

Voters in Midland, Texas, are facing an election next week where a $100,000,000 road bond will be voted up or down. See JPG on the right for the propositions. Elected council members tell us they must have it, and there's a well financed movement underway to get out the "yes" votes.

But wait a sec. These two letters to the editor in the 10-22-17 Midland Reporter Telegram -- from Rubin B. Reavis and Charles R. Sessions -- suggested a sales tax as a viable alternative to the bond. See below:

Not a bad suggestion. The idea isn't getting a lot of play, but it seems like a workable alternative.

Editor's note: The government is like Harvey Weinstein. Regular citizens are like Weinstein's girls. Resist and he can make life miserable for you. - Robo-ed. Hey, that's pretty good! You really earned your pay this time! -Sleepless.Pay! Ha! What pay! -Robo-ed.

September 30, 2017

There is an interesting theory from Thomas Lifson in How Tom Price was taken out. This theory holds that Price was seduced into taking those expensive flights by deep state operatives who convinced him it was OK. Excerpt:

What if, for example, when a schedule was presented to Price that featured a the IAD-PHL jet charter, Price asked questions about whether or not this was really necessary. That is what I would expect from a deficit hawk. I expect that he could be present[ed] arguments that this is standard operating procedure. After all, when it was revealed that Loretta Lynch used a private jet to fly to Phoenix – a route flown by commercial airlines[1] -- I don’t remember a single person screaming about the abuse of taxpayers by such flights.

Intriguing and entirely possible. There is another factor, too. The MSM is constantly on guard for something, anything, even if it's less than half true, that will make Trump or his administration look bad.

September 21, 2017

We've grown so used to being shocked by young people's ignorance of the constitution that new revaluations are met with a resignation that we really are headed down a path most of us have spent our lives thinking could never happen.

Heather Mac Donald recently put in front of us the hideous response college administrators had to two professors' suggestion that young people should, “Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. . . . Eschew substance abuse and crime.” (Her article was originally published in the Wall Street Journal, but for non-subscribers it can be seen at Sigforum.com. Click Higher Ed's Latest Taboo Is 'Bourgeois Norms'.) These days anything that refers positively to good character traits is racism. And the two professors caught hell from their respective colleges.

September 18, 2017

With all the effort currently devoted to abolishing our Constitutional rights, it's high time we celebrated Constitution Dayon September 18, 2017. Actually, it should be observed on September 17, but no, it will be Monday, September 18. Whenever. It doesn't matter that much.

But it is important that we acknowledge where our freedoms come from and hope we can keep them alive. With that in mind, it might be useful to note the survey results in The scariest stat you'll see all day. Spoiler alert!

In a poll conducted for the Annenberg Public Policy Center ahead of this weekend’s celebration of the 229th anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution, only 26 percent of respondents could identify the executive, legislative and judicial branches, while 40 percent could name only one or two.

The threats we face right here at home are as challenging as those from abroad. Staying free in this environment will be a real test of faith in the Constitution and our founding fathers.

Federal farm subsidy program dollars are flowing into the “urban areas”- where there are no farms. Farm subsidy lobbyists, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture executives, the very well connected, wealthy heirs, and even U.S. Senators are receiving farm subsidy checks.

And something we've known for a long time, most of the subsidies go to big agribusiness, not family farmers:

In fact, small family farms are not receiving much money. Our analysis shows that billions of the FY2008-11 subsidies flowed to just 1.4% of recipients- those receiving at least $250,000! News outlets have repeatedly reported that just 10% of recipients received 74% of the subsidies.

In fact, the farm subsidy is so pervasive and lucrative that many of the top Washington, D.C. farm subsidy recipients are farm subsidy lobbyists, lawyers and executives at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Even elected representatives in the House and Senate are receiving their piece of the federal pie.

Read the whole thing to get more of a flavor of what voters are up against. Furthermore, as we've noted in a prior post, in order to cut back on an entitlement we need the backing of public opinion, a willing president, and a cooperative legislature. Currently we have none of those in regard to farm subsidy handouts.

September 11, 2017

The September 9-10, 2017, edition of the Wall Street Journal contained an interview with John F. Cogan who has just written "The High Cost of Good Intentions" about entitlements in the U.S. There's an often repeated truism that holds that once an entitlement is established it is impossible to remove.

So it was most enlightening to learn that there are actually some entitlements that were removed. Mr. Cogan's recalled how four presidents actually did reduce or at least slow entitlements: Grover Cleveland, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. Why Entitlements Keep Growing and ... (Paywalled).

Franklin D. Roosevelt -- "Within seven days in office," Mr. Cogan says, "FDR asked Congress to repeal the disability entitlements to World War I, Philippine War, and Boxer Rebellion veterans. Congress gave him that authority, and within a year, he'd knocked nearly 400,000 veterans off the pension rolls; By the time we got to World War II, the benefit rolls were a third lower than they were when he took office."

Grover Cleveland -- The irrepressible Cleveland "started vetoing these private [pension] bills right away" - 220 of them in his first term-which explains why he still holds the presidential record for most vetoes.

Ronald Reagan -- "There's no president who has undertaken entitlement reform in as comprehensive a way." Reagan "fought a very good fight and he slowed the growth of entitlements like no other president ever had." He achieved significant reductions in 1981 and 1982, and then "battled to preserve those changes through the rest of his two terms. The growth of entitlements during his time in office is the slow est of any modern administration." Still, this striking accomplishment "ultimately only slowed, and did not reduce, the aggregate financial burden of entitlements."

Bill Clinton -- Mr. Cogan also gives an honorable mention to Bill Clinton for his welfare-reform plan. Mr. Clinton's was "a fairly narrow reform compared to the broad swath of entitlements, but history will show that it's one of the most successful reforms that's ever been achieved. The reform not only reduced welfare's burden on taxpayers, it has also benefited the recipients, whom the old unreformed program had been harming."

Here's why it won't happen again anytime soon. The three things needed for real reform are a president who feel strongly about it, a public that agrees, and a cooperative legislature. It doesn't take a sharp observer to conclude that none of those conditions are present today. So voters barely bat an eye when President Trump advocates raising the debt ceiling.